ACTIVISM TODAY
Participant Backgrounds
Martha Ackelsberg taught political science at Smith College for over 40 years, offering courses on urban politics, feminist and democratic theory, wealth and poverty, and social movements. She has published two books as well as numerous articles on anarchism, feminism, social movements, the “gay marriage debates,” reconstructing families, and Jewish women. During her time at Smith, she helped to establish, and teach in, the Women’s Studies Program (later Program for the Study of Women and Gender). In addition to teaching and research, she has held a variety of offices in the American Political Science Association and its committees and caucuses; served on (and chaired) the Northampton Housing Partnership; was active in the early years of the women’s health movement in New York City; and has been deeply involved in Jewish feminism since the 1970s.
Linda Greenhouse spent 40 years at the New York Times, the last 30 covering the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2009, she embarked on a new career, teaching full time at Yale Law School and writing a biweekly op ed column for the Times web site. She is the author of five books, the most recent a memoir, “Just a Journalist,” published in 2017 by Harvard University Press. She served on the Harvard Board of Overseers from 2009-2015 and is currently president of the American Philosophical Society.
Ellen Hume is a Boston-based journalist and teacher who has spent her life promoting public engagement in democracy. Her recent work includes media literacy and “fake news”, inclusion of minorities, and developing investigative journalism. Hume began her career as a reporter for the Somerville Journal, then on to the Detroit Free Press, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal, where she covered the White House, and as a commentator on PBS and CNN. She was research director of the Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab from 2007-9, executive director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press Politics and Public Policy at Harvard from 1989-93, and head of the Democracy Project at PBS from 1996-8. While living in Budapest from 2009-16 she worked to support investigative journalists, civil society, and the embattled Roma minority. Her full bio and travel blog of a recent cross-country trip across America with her husband is on her website, ellenhume.com.
Margaret Kemeny is Professor of Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, as well as the founder and director of the Queens Cancer Center, the only comprehensive cancer center in the NYC public hospital system. She has spent the last 20 years fighting for the rights of all people in the U.S. to receive medical care of excellent quality and to abolish race and income discrepancies in the levels of medical service delivery.
Drucilla Stender Ramey has for 40 years served as a national leader and spokesperson on equal access and opportunity in the justice system. Formerly a civil rights litigator at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), she served as the Executive Director and General Counsel of the Bar Association of San Francisco, Executive Director of the National Association of Women Judges and Dean of Golden Gate University School of Law. The first woman Chair of the ACLU of Northern California and former Chair of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. She currently chairs the Board of Equal Rights Advocates.
Theda Skocpol is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard. She has served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and as Director of the Center for American Political Studies. In 2007, she was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science for her "visionary analysis of the significance of the state for revolutions, welfare, and political trust, pursued with theoretical depth and empirical evidence." Skocpol's work covers an unusually broad spectrum of topics including both comparative politics and American politics. Her research focuses on U.S. social policy and civic engagement in American democracy, including changes since the 1960s.